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ON, D, W. VOOEHEES, 



OF INDIANA, 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF EEPRESENTATIVES, 



MARCH 9, 1864. 



' The multitude in all countries are patient to a certain point." Junius. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. . 

rniNTED AT CONSTITUTIONAL UNION OFnCE. 
18G4 



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SPEECH. 



The House being in Committeo of the Whole on 
the atate of the Union — 

Mr. VOORHEESsaid: 

Mr. Chaikman: I arise to address the 
Houye to-day with feeliugs of prot'ound de- 
pression and gloom. It is a melaneboly spec- 
tacle to behold a free government die. The 
world it is true is filled with the evidences ot 
decay. All nature speaks the voice of dissolu- 
tion, ar-.d the highway of history and of life is 
strewn with the wrecks which time, the great 
despoiler, has made. But hope of the future, 
bright visions of reviving glory are no where 
denied to the heart of man save as he gazes 
upon the downfall of legal liberty. He listens 
sorrowfully to tho auturan winds as they sigh 
through dismantled forests, but he knows 
that their breath will be soft and vernal in 
the spring, and that the dead flowers and the 
withered foliage will blossom and bloom again. 
He sees the sky overcast with the angry 
frown of the tempest, but he knows that the 
gun will reappear, and the stars, the bright 
emblazony of God, cannot peri.eh. Man him- 
self, this strange connecting link between dust 
and deity, totters wearily onward under the 
weight of years and pain towards the gaping 
tomb, but how briefly his mind lingers around 
that disuMl spot. It is filled with tears and 
grief, and the willow and the cypress gather 
around it with their loving, but mournfal 
embrace. And is this aJl ? Not so. If a 
man die shall he not live again ? Beyond the 
grave, in the distant Aiden, hope provides an 
elysium of the soul where the mortal assumes 
immortality and life becomes an endless 
splendor. 

But where, sir, in all the dreary regions of 
the past, filled with convulsions, wars, and 
crimes, can you point your finger t© the tomb 
of a free commonwealth on which the angel 
of resurrection has ever descended or from 
whose mouth the stone of despoti-'m has ever 
been rolled away ? Where, in what age and 
in what clime, have the ruins of constitutional 
freedom renewed their youth and regained 
their lost estate f By whose etronj? grip has 
the dead corpse of a Republic once fallen ever 
been raised ? The merciful Master who walked 
upon the waters and bade the winds be still 
left no ordained apostles with power to wrench 
apart the jaws of national death and release 
the victims of despotism. The wail of the 
heartbroken over the dead is not so sad to 



! me as the realization of this fact. Bat p.!! 
history, with a loud unbroken voice, proclaims 
it, and the evidence of what the past has lieen 
is conclusive to my mind of what the future will 
be. Wherever in tho wide domain of human 
conduct a people once possessed of liberty, 
with all power in their own hands, have snr- 
r ondered these great gifts of God at the com- 
mand of the usurper they have never utter- 
wards proves themselves worthy to regain 
their forfeited treasures. 

Sir, let history speak on this point. Bend 
your ear, and listen to the solemn warnings 
which distant ages perpetually utter in their 
uneasy slumbers. Four thousand year.s of 
human experience are open and present -for 
the study of the American people. Standing 
as wo do the last and greatest Republic in the 
midst of the earth, it ijecomes us most deeply 
in this c isis of our destiny to examine well 
the career and the final fate of kindred gov- 
ernments in the past. 

The principles of self-government are of 
ancient origin. They were not created by 
the authors of the American Constitution. 
They were adopted by those wise and gifted 
minds from the models of former times and 
applied to the wants of the American people. 
Far back in the gray, uncertain dawn of his- 
tory, in the land of mystery and of miracles, 
the hand of Almighty benevolence planted 
the seeds of constitutional government by 
which life, liberty, and property were made 
secure. Abraham and Lot each governed his 
household and his herdmen by law ; and al- 
though they became offended at each o'her, 
yet under the divine sanction they refrained 
from the pleasures of conquest, subjugation, 
confiscation. They divided the country be- 
fore them by a primitive treaty, and the grass 
continued to grow for their flocks unstained 
by fraternal blood and uncrushed by the hoof 
of war. Aud in long after years, when the 
descendents of the patriarchs brok^ thoir 
prison doors iu Egypt and lay encamped In 
the wilderness, the omniscient presence came 
down and gave them a frame- work of funda- 
mental law in which the popular will was 
largely recognized. A system of jurisprudence 
was devised for the people of Israel which pro- 
tected liberty and administered justice. Un- 
der its influence the feeble fugitives and home- 
less wanderers without bread and without 
water in the desert became an empire of 
wisdom, of wealth, and of power. The hberal 



4 



ir.stitutions of th'* Jewish theocracy proilucecl 
Statesraf>u, poets, historians, and warriors, 
who will continue to challf^nj2;e th« admiration 
of posterity by the splendor of their achieve- 
menrs as long as generations como an^-i ^o on 
the waves of time. Th^y lived within the 
immediate juri:^diction of Jehovah. They 
possessed the ark of the covenant and took 
counsel wich ministering angels din.^ctly from 
the portals of Paradise. With all these evi- 
dences of celestial favor ia their behalf, it is 
not to b9 wondered that they claimed aa ex- 
emption from the changes and mutations of 
human aflfairs, and boasted that the seal of 
perpetuity had been impressed by the Divine 
hand on the pillars of their government. 
But public virtue became debauched ; the 
popular heart corroded with the lust of cou- 
ijuest and of gain ; primitive purity faded 
away under the baleful breath of embittered 
factions ; the fires of patriotism were smother- 
ed by rankling hato and the thirst for revenge; 
and all these evil passions broke forth in the 
voice of a malignant majority clam«ring for a 
king. In that hour of disastrous eclipse, the 
spirit of liberty took her flight forever from 
the bills of Judea. Thousands of years have 
rolh d away since then. The Holy Land has 
been the theatre of conflicts which rocked the 
tporld as the throes of an earthquake. Genius 
and heroism h.ive there blazed as stars in the 
Eastern skies. There, too, was enacted the 
sublime tragedy of redemption — that tragedy 
which summoned the inhabitants of all worlds 
as its witnesses, and filled nature with egony 
in all her parts. The eyes of mankind have 
been turned back and fixed upon those scenes 
of immortal interest for more than thirty 
centuries. But wLo has lifted up and restored 
her fallen system of liberal institutions ? 
The people surrendered their rights, their 
francJiises, their self-control, and welcomed 
the power of one man. The base act has 
never been reversed. As the tree fell so it 
lies. It died at the root. Despotism reigns 
undisturbed and unbroken, iu darkness andin 
silencp, where once the light and music of 
/ freedom gladdened the souls of the stately 
,' sons and dark-eyed daughters of Israel. 

And leaving the land of sacred history, what 
BJmilar scenes of human weakness and human 
folly meet us at every step in tlie onward path- 
way of time. Where now are those splendid 
structures which once adorned the shores of 
the JE^ean, the Euxine, and the Mediterra- 
nean ? Athens, the eye of Greece, the school 
of the world — has her dismal fate impressed 
no lesson on the thoughts of mankind ? Fif 
teen hundred years betore the birth of onr 
Saviour, the light of civil order and civil free- 
dom arose in the Idand of Crete, and sent its 
rays through the vale of Tempe, the rich 
plains of Thessaly, over the fruitful fields of 
Attica and Boeotia, and hovered with an ever- 
lasting and imperishable radiance around the 
heads of Olympus, Helicon, and Parnassus. 
It is true that kin^-s governed in those early 
days, bat absolute power id one man was un- 



known. Laws rande by the people chained 
the licentious hand of oppression. The 
pi oudest monarohs of thos.-t warlike agf s gov- 
erned in obedience to the will oi the legisla- 
tive departments. Thev enacted i.o laws; 
they ex-'cuted them as they found them. A 
house of peers and an as.sembly of the people 
shared the sunreme authority and ensured 
safety and liberty to the citiz'^n. Ulyssus 
speaks of one chief "to whom Jupiter hath 
intrusted the sceptre and the laws, that by 
them he may govern." But he recognizes 
that these instruments of governm'-ut aro 
bestowed by the pooular favor, for, wh'^n ship- 
wrecked upon a strange coast and fiddrassing 
himself as a supplicant to its queen, he says: 
" May the gods grant yoa and your gu-st3 to 
live happily; and may yon all transmit to 
your children your possessions in your houses 
and whatsoever honors the people hath given 
you." But even this limited and constitu- 
tional system of monarchy was no* long borne 
by that proud race which drank in the lovo 
of liberty from the free air of the mountains 
over their heads, and the breath of the rest- 
less and stormy ocean at their feet. '■ Those 
vigorous principles of Democracy which had 
always existed in the Grecian goT^rrnments 
began to ferment ; and, in the cour.se of a few 
figes monarchy was everywhere aviolished ; 
the very name of king was very generally 
proscribed ; a commonwealth was thought 
the only government to which it became men 
to submit ; and the term tyrant was intro- 
duced to denote those who, in opposition to 
these new political principles, acquired mon- 
archical sway." Then sprang into existence 
that wonderful cluster of republics whose 
memory yet fills the earth with its fragrance 1 
of noble deeds and exalted genius. Liberty ' 
hovered over that classic peninsula of South- 
ern Europe like the angel of creation hovering 
over night and chaos, and from the fostering 
warmth of hnr embrace came forth an im- 
mortal world of letter^, of art, of science, and 
of law. The Macedonian, the Spartan, the 
Athenian, and all lifted their heads among 
the stars, and barely condescended to pity 
and despise neighboring nations who were 
less free than themse ~ 

Marathon and S 

Platea, as the American points to .Saratog 
and Bunker liill, Yorktown and New Orleans. 
They kept their festive days of national deliv- 
erance and joy as the fourth day of July and 
the eighth day of J.\nuary have been com- 
memorated and hallowed by us. They sound- 
ed all the depths and shoals of honor ; drank 
deep draughts from the very fountains of free- 
dom ; achieved immortality in every depart- 
ment of human thought and ao'-ion. Ai.d yet, 
with their cup lull of glory for mora than a 
thousand years, spara.ling to the brim with 
rights and privileges more snvet to theT taste 
than the honey of Ilymettus, they ashed it ^ 
to the earth, and its thatterKd ir^trra n'-s ro- / 
main as they fell. The lust of power on the 
part of {.ublic rulers, and the luxury, sloth, 



iiboring nations who were , . 
emselves* They pointed to; \ 
5alr.mip, Thermopyle, and \ 
merican points to Saratoga ' 



and indifference of the people, nnrsed so loBg 
in the lap of prosperity that they allowed the 
usurper to march on in his lawless career ixn- 
challenged and unquestioned, worked the over- 
throw of the Republics of Greece. And what 
traveller, standing upon those blighted and 
withered plains, has beheld a sign of resur- 
rection for more thsn two thousand years ? 
Now and then, it is true, a murmur or a groan 
has disturbed the deadly sleep in which that 
I land is embraced, but it only shows that she 
Hdreams of the past, not that she will awak" 
\) the future. Her birthright was abandoned 
"by her own sordid hand, and it cannot be re- 
claimed. A petty power of Northern Europe 
now gives a king to the countrymen of Homer, 
Themistocles, and Solon. 

But, sir, another name more promment 
than all others, presents itself to the student 
of antiquity in this csnnection. Roman his- 
tory stands out upon the canvas of time as 
plainly marked as the events of modern ages. 
We see Tarquin, the Proud, expelled from his 
throne, and the foundations of the common- 
wealth laid five hundred years before the 
Christian era. For the next five centuries we 
behold a race of men who "would have 
brooked the eternal devil i@ keep his state in 
Kome, as easily as a king." 

How fondlv the devotee of liberty dwells 
upon that period ! With what grandeur the 
names of the mighty dead, and the sublime 
creations of their genius, arise to our vievr I 
In what does the boasted civilization of the 
present surpass the achievements of a race 
and an age to whom the revelations of God 
were unknown ? Who has spoken as Cicero 
spoke? What historian has guided a pen 
so full of majesty and of beauty as that 
which inscribed the annals of Tacitus ? Whoso 
muse has winged a loftier flight or sung a 
nobler strain than Virgil's? In arms too, 
what warriors have improved upon the skill 
and magnificence of Scipio and Cssar ? But 
it was still more in the dignity aud freedom 
of her private citizens that Rome was great 
than in the renown of her most illustrious 
leaders, statesmen, and orators. Kings of 
powerful nations bowed their uncovered 
heads before the Roman people. The magis- 
trates, consuls, and military commanders paid 
homage and obedience directly to the public 
will. The sovereignty of the people was ab- 
solute. The principles of self- government 
were never iu the history of nations more 
fully or clearly displayel. Jurisprudence 
became an enlightened science, from whose 
pages a light extends to the present hour, 
and under whose guardian protection tue 
humblest citizen of Rome was secure in every 
right declared unalienable by the declaration 
of American independence. But why linger 
upon the well-known story of Roman liberty 
and Roman greatness. I use it but to illus- 
trate. The melancholy conclusion came. As 
the son of the morning fell from Heaven, so 
' Rome fell from the luminous sphere of liberty 
never to hope again. The world grew dark 



as her light ifaded away, and ten centuries of 
gloom succeeded hpr downfall. And why---^ 
perished this mistress of the earth ? Not 
because the vandal ravaged her borders : not 
because the Gaul burned to avenge the vic- 
tims of Caesar: not because the Goth beat 
her gates to pieces ; but because her people 
submitted to the encroachments of executive 
avtthority, lulled by the Syren voice of a 
false security, until at last they awakened / 
to find their chains and manacles forged and / 
fastened. Their links yet fester in the flesh' 
of the descendants of Brutus, and their clank- 
ings may yet be heard iu the forum where- 
Cato warned his countrytnen against the ap- 
proach of despotic power. No deliverer has 
eveir arisen. Liberty has never been woood 
to return. Once abandoned and surrendered 
by those whom she has crowned with honor 
1 and greatness, in the m'dst of the earth she 
goes forth with the air and feelings of insulted 1 
majesty to seek more worthy objects of her/ 
love and care. 

Sir, modern history contains no exception 
to the rule which the fate of ancient republics 
has established. Aspirations for freeiiom have 
at difterent periods ascended from almost every 
portion of the map of modern Europe. A sys- 
tem of confederated states built up and nur- 
tured the free institutions of Holland for more 
than three hundred years, while the night of 
despotism lay thick and heavy on all the sur- 
rounding horizon. As revolted colonies, as 
states in rebellion, thj Dutch republic main- 
tained a defensive war for thirty years a^'ainst 
the whole power of Spain when Philip II 
controlled the councils and commanded the 
wealth of the civilized world. Their proudest 
cities were besieged and fell a prey to pillage 
and murder. In pitched battles they seldom 
triumphed over the superior numbers and 
equipments of the powerful Spaniard. Their 
country was trodden under foot ; their houses 
plundered ; their fields laid waste ; and the 
wild boar and the wolf roamed unmolested 
through the streets of once populous towns. , 
But the endurance and patriotism of a people 
to whom no terms were offered except abject, 
unconditional submission, outlived and broke 
the rage of their oppressors. A free common- 
wealth, the United States of Holland, arose 
and extended the spirit of enterprise, com- 
merce, and refinement into all the four quar- ' 
ters of the earth. She conquered the sea and j 
subdued distance. The peaceful victories of 
her trade were celebrated at the Cape of Good 
Hope, and in the harbor of Ndw York, in the 
ladies of the East, and in every latitude of 
thd Western Hemisphere. Nor was she less 
renowned in war. The broom at the mast- 
head swept the ocean of her enemies, and the 
onlji guns of a foreign power whose hostile 
roar ever penetrated the Tower of London, 
were the guns of the free States of Holland. 
Louis XIV, the grand monarch of imperial 
France, when Turreae and Luxemburg and 
Conde led his armies, poured the torrents of 
his power against her for conquest and sub- 



« 



r jogation ; but they were poured in vain. She 
' fought with tha inspiration of freedom, and 
made her history secure and illustrious as 
long as a generous heart shall be found to 
throb in sympathy with the welfare and hap- 
piness of a heroic people. Bat where now is 
that noble prodigy of liberal institutions ? 
Why does she lift her beautiful head to the 
Heavens no longer? Her glories declined 
under the burthen nf unbounded wealth and 
overflowing prosperity. Her people relaxed 
the vigilance of their guard over the citadel of 
their liberties, and slumbered at their posts 
while unlawful power fortified itself beyond 
successful attack, ^hus she perished ignobly 
by her own hand, having throughout her 
whole career defied and held at bay a world 
in arms. And how still and heavy ha^ been 
her long repose ! No awakening convulsions 
shake her rigid limbs, or disturb her frozen 
arteries. Once fallen, and forever lost is the 
mournful epic of her fate. She takes her 
plftce in the dreary catalogue furnished by 
antiquity. 

But cross the ckanntl and take your stand 
on twe soil of England. She too has furnished 
mankind with a short-lived experiment ef 
lepublican government. Wrongs and out- 
rages inflicted on the English people, similar 
in kind, but far less enormous than tho^e 
which now oppress the citizen of the United 
States of America, wrought the volcanic 
eruption of 1640. The best blood of England 
perished in the conflict between Magna Charta 
on one sida and absolutism on the other. 
John Hampden bled on the plains of Chal- 
grave, but the royal Stu.irt bled on the scaf- 
fold. When the strife died away, the British 
constitution was found to be possessed and ! 
upheld by those who partook of the sacrament | 
of the Lord's supper with bloody hands, andwho 
enforced the sermon on the mount with tire \ 
and sword. They were the ancestors of those j 
who to-day in this land are crucifying liberty j 
afresh, and putting her to open shame. God 
does not allow Himself to be mocked, and ! 
Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England 
went out together, while a wrathful tempest 
raged around the dying bed of the gr^at, but 
bloody and tyrannical I'rotector. The incom- 
ing wave, the reaction in the tide of human j 
afl'airs, bore back the dissolute and worthless ! 
Charles H to the home of his ancestors, and j 
Englishmen have never from that time to this 
lifted their hands or their voices in behalf of 
a republic. 

France points to the revolting blotch, the 
stain of mingled blood and tears, which her 
wild and mad attempts at freedom havo left 
upon the page of history. We gaze at it but 
for an instant, and turn away with horror. 
At the very moment almost that the President 
of the French Directory declared "that 
monarchy would never more show its frightful 
head in France, Bonaparte with his grenadiers 
entered the palace of St. Cloud, and dispersing 
with the bayonet the deputies of the people 
deliberating on the affairs of State, laid the 



foundation of that vast fabric of despotism 
which overshadowed all Europe." 

Sir, I pause in this train of sorrowful 
illustrations. I tremble at their contempJatiou 
when my min-t is bi ought to embr.oe the 
conclusions which flaw from them. But shall 
we shrink back affrighted and appalled 
because the great lessona of uniform history 
come to us with a voice of solemn and pro- 
phetic warning ? Shall the universal expe- 
rience of the human race bring us no v/is- 
dom ? Shall we wrap ourselves in a sweet 
delusion and lie down to pheasant dreams 
when we know by every chart of navigation 
that the fatal maelstrom is just at hand? 
Will the proud and daring people of America 
close their eyes and ears against the teaching 
of ages, and wait for fetters and gyves to 
convince them that their liberties ere in dan- 
ger ? Are they to be chained like Prometheus 
to the reck, while the vulture of desjrjotism 
preys forever upon their bleeding vitals ? 
Sir, in my hours of seclusion and study I 
have to the best of my humble capacity held 
up the lainp of the past to the face o( the 
future, and I call God to witness that I wpnld 
be recrt-ant and faithless to my own con- 
science if I did not proclaim, as far as my voice 
will reach, that a danger is this hour upon 
the American people more deadly than the 
juic(« of the hemlock or the bite of the asp. 
This Government is dying ; dying, sir, dying. 
We are standing around its bed of death, and 
will soon be wretched mourners at its tomb, 
unless the sovereign and heroic remedy -13 
speedily applied. I will submit tha facts in 
condensed array on which I make this asser- 
tion, that a candid public may judge between 
mep-ndthat pestilent class who, failing to an- 
swer, resort to slander. 

The American republic was established in 
order to accomplish avowel and specified 
purposes. The objects of its creation were 
lettin no uncertainty. Its mission was clear 
and distinct by the terms of the Constitution. 
It came into eivisteace "z'n crder to forma 
more perfect union, establish justice, insure do- 
mestic tranquilitij, provide for the common de- 
fense, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
hlessings of liberty" to that and all succeeding 
peaerations of American citizens. Who will 
dare to rise in his place and say that this 
Government has been administered during 
the last three years in a mode even tending 
towards the accomplishment of the^e grand 
results? Has the establishment of justice 
been maintained ? The sword has been 
thrown into the scale.5 of justice, and there 
is not this hour a court betweea the two 
oceans left frea to decide the laws as they 
have uniformly teen decided in England and 
America for the last two hundred years. The 
very foundations of civilized jurisprudence 
have been torn away, and the v/hole tdifice 
is in ruins. The Magna C/iaria is erased ; 
the Habeas Corpus is deid ; the very soul and 
spirit of lib.-irty is extinguishei in the forum 
of the judiciary. To this sacred sanctuary, 



more than to any other department of the 
Government, the ble-singa of liberty were 
entrusted. But has the present Administra- 
tion made them secure? It is required to do 
so by the terms of the Constitution. Let 
each mind give its own answer. Not one 
right which consiitutes the free:1om and safety 
of the citizen but what has been wickedly and 
wantonly violated. Prisons filled without in- 
dictment and without warrant ; long and bit- 
ter punishment inflicted without trial or con- 
viction ; the whole jury system abolished by 
a strok.e of the pen in the hand of the Execu- 
tive, or his subordinates in crime ; no wit- 
nesses brought to the face of the accused ; no 
counsel pe'-mitted to appear in his behalf ; his 
house broken open and his papers searched in 
the midst of his pallid and terrified wife and 
children ; such are some of the evidences 
which exist on every hand that our free in- 
stitutions are hastening to their overthrow. 
Asd not content with breaking down all the 
ancient safeguards of liberty, new and malig- 
naat measures of legislation have been con- 
tinually devised by a slavish Congress by 
which to more effectually reach, and torture, 
and grind the citizen. The most innocent 
conduct, a harmless word, a simple look has 
been enacted into guilt. The hired hounds 
of arbitrary power find conspiracy and crime 
in the friendly greetings of neighbors on their 
farms. Speaking of the period of 1795 in 
England, that great modern philosopher, 
Henry Thomas Buckle, in his History of 
Civilization, uses the following language, 
which I adopt as faithfully descriptive of the 
conduct of the party now in power, and of 
the times in which we live. 

" Nothing, however, could stop the Government 
in its headlong career. The ministers, secure of a 
majority in both houses of Parliament, were able to 
carry their measures in defiance of the people, who 
opposed them by every mode short of actual vio- 
lence. And as the object of these new laws was to 
check the spirit of inquiry and prevent reforms 
which the progress of society rendered indispensa- 
ble, there were also brought into play other means 
subservient to the same end. It is no exaggeration 
• to say that for some years England was ruled by a 
system of absolute terror. The ministers of the 
day, turning a struggle of party into a war of pro- 
eeription, filled the"pri?ons with their political op- 
ponents, and allowed them when in confinement to 
be treated with shameful severity. If a man was 
known to be a reformer ho was constantly in danger 
of being arrested; and if he escaped that, he was 
watched at every turn, and his private letters were 
opened as thoy passed through the postoffice. la 
such cases no scruples wore allowed. Even the con- 
fidence of domestio life was violated. Xo opponent 
of Government was safa under his own roof against 
the tales of eaves-droppers and the gossip of ser- 
vants. Discord was introduced into the bosom of 
families, and schisms caused between parents and 
their children. Not only were the most strenuous 
attempts made to silence the press, but the book- 
sellers were so constantly prosecuted that they did 
not dare to publish a work if its author were obnox- 
ious to the court. Indeed, whoever opposed the 
Government was proclaimed an enemy to his coun- 
try. Political associations and public meetings 



were strictly forbidden. Every popular leader was 
in personal danger, and every popular assemblage 
was dispersed, either by threats or by military exe- 
cution. That hateful machinery familiar to the 
worst days of the seventeenth century, was put into 
motion.' Spies were paid ; witnesses were suborned; 
juries were packed. The coS'ee-hou'-es, the inns, 
and the clubs were filled with emissaries of the Gov- 
ernment, who reported the most hasty expresfions 
of common conversation. If by these means no sort 
of evidence could be collected, there was another 
resource which was unsparingly used. For, the 
haheuK corpus act being constantly suspended, the 
crown had the power of imprisoniag without inquiry 
and without limitation any person offensive to the 
ministry, but of whose crimo no proof was attempted 
to bo brought." 



Sir, why are you, why am I out of the vaults 
of a dungeon, and standing on this floor to- 
day ? Not because we are guilty of no offence ; 
not because the broad shield of the law inter- 
poses its protection, but simply because the 
Executive has not yet seen fit and proper in 
the exercise of his absolute and unrestrained 
will to lay us in irons. This is the ultimate 
climax of despotic power. Each one of the 
twenty millions of people within the control 
of the United States holds his ©r her tenure 
to personal liberty— the right to walk the 
green earth, to breathe the air, and look at 
the sun — not by virtue of a free Constifution, 
but dependent upon the clomency and pleas- 
ure of one man. May I not he arrested to- 
night ? May not you or any one else to-mor- 
row ? Has it not been done in more than a 
thousand instances, and have not the courts, 
and the laws been powerless to save ? While 
I am now speaking, may not some minion 
who licks the hand ©f power, and whom it 
would honor to call a slave, be preparing 
notes from which to testify against me before 
a military commission ? Have we in the 
West forgotten Burnside, and the infamy of 
his reign in our midst ? Will the inhabitants 
of the Western Circuit in England ever forget 
the monster Jeffries and the murder of Alice 
Lisle? Will some poor, crawling, despised 
sycophant and tool of executive despotism dare 
to say that I shall not pronounce the name of 
Vallandigham ? The scandal and stigma of his 
condemnation and banishment have filled the 
civilized world ; and the Lethean and oblivious 
waves of a thousand years will not wash 
away the shame and reproach of that miser- 
able scene from the American name. Some 
members on the other side of this chamber 
have attacked with fierce clamor the great 
American statesman and the Christian gen- 
tleman who suffers bis exile in the cause of 
liberty on a foreign soil. So the basest 
cur that ever kenneled may bay, at the bid- 
ding of his master, the caged lion in the 
distance. Protract this iniquity, this crimo, 
as long as you will, however, the judg- 
ment of history will at last overwhelm 
you with an insufferable odium, as certainly 
as the streams of truth emanate from beneath 
the great white throne of God. "Establish 
justice 1" " Secure the blessings of liberty I" 



Oh I bitter mockery. Justice has bedn de 
throned and the blyssings of liberty anui- 
hilated. There is not one square mile of 
free soil in the American Republic. It is 
slave territory from the Aroostook to the 
Columbia. Every man in all that vast ex- 
panse may be reduced in an instant to hops- 
less bondage, every home may ba brckf^n open 
and pillaged, every dollars' worth of propnrty 
may be swept into that yawning and bottom- 
less gulf— the National Treasury ; and all 
under the sanction of the principles and 
practices daily exemplified by the Adminis- j 
tration which now hurls us on to ruin. 

But the "domestic tranquility," has it been I 
insured f When the present party came into 
power the road to an honorable peacg on the 
basis of the Union was still open. Before 
the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln his friends 
r.nd supporters held the issues of life and 
death, peace and war in their hands in this 
capitol. The records of the last session of the 
36th Congress are immortal. They cannot 
perish ; and as the woes and calamities of th« 
people thicken and magnify by the frightful 
war in which we are engaged, they increase 
in value to posterity more rapidly than the 
leaves of the sybilline book. The baleful 
brood of political destructionists who now 
unhappily possess the high seats of national 
authority did not then want public tranquility. 
They invoked the storm which has since 
rained blood upon the land. They courted 
the whirlwind which has prostrated the pro- 
gress of a century in ruins. They danced 
with a hellish glee around the bubbling 
cauldron of civil war and welcomed with fero- 
cious joy every hurtful mischief which flick- 
ered in its lurid and infernal flames. Compro- 
mise, which has its origin in the love and 
mercy of Gcd ; which made peace and ratified 
the treaty on Calvary between Heaven and 
the revolted and rebellious earth ; which is 
the fundamental basis of all human associa- 
tion, and by which all governments the world 
ever knew have been created and upheld; 
compromise, which fools pronounce a trea- 
sonable word, and skilful knaves cover with 
reproach, because they are enriching them- 
selves at the expense of the national sorrow 
and blood, was discarded by the North and 
accepted by the South when offered by Mr. 
Crittenden. By it domestic tranquility could 
have been ensured. But an ulterior and de- 
structive spirit ruled the hoar and fl )oded 
the nation with misery. And sines the 
breaking up of the fountains of the great deep 
who of this party have labored to tranquilize 
our disordered affairs ? Who has endeavored, 
in the name of Christ and by the omnipotent 
power of the principles which He left His 
Father's throne to proclaim and for which He 
drank the wormwood and the gall on the 
cross, to expel the cruel and ferocious demon 
of civil war that has howled so fi-jrcely for 
the last three years among the tombs of our 
young and heroic dead ? Not one, sir ; not 
one. Wise and Christian measures, looking 



[ to reconciliation and peace and union have 
been repeatedly spurned by the Executive and 
this l.'gislative department which he holds 
in du.esg. At no distant day, when the 
horror of this war can no longer be 
borne, the various propositions which have 
been made and rejected in behalf of enlight- 
ened negotiation and a constitutional restora- 
tion will be gathered up and hurled at those 
in power as an accusation more appallinc, an 
indictment more damning, than was ever 
I leveled against a murderer upon his trial 
Nor can they, in that hour of their fear and 
I calamity at which the righteous world will 
augh and mock, hide their guilty heads under 
the assertion that the South will not treat for 
peace; yes, peace which shall restore the 
Union nuder the Constitution as it was writ- 
ten by the fathers, and as it has been inter- 
preted by the supreme judicial tribunals. 
Why came that wasted figure, that gifted 
child of genius, the pure and elevated Ste- 
phens, of Georgia, from Richmond on his way 
to this Capitol in the midsummer of 1863 ? 
Was it a trifling cause that moved him ? Ail 
the world knows that his judgment and his 
heart clung fondly and to the last to the old 
Govern ment, in whose councils he had won 
so much honor. It is equally well known 
that he has never embraced the suicidal doc- 
trine of State secession. The right of revolu- 
tion IS the ground upon which he stands. The 
malignant portion of the Southern press too 
such rnischievous and damaging prints as the 
Examiner and Inquirer at Richmond, and the 
Register at Mobile, who continually cripple the 
interests and friends of humanity in this bale- 
ful contest, assailed Mr. Stephens for his at- 
tempt at negotiation, which they averred 
would lead to reunion. Yet, with these thin-^s 
well known, and perhaps much more, which 
now slumbers in the secret drawers of the 
Executive, this great messenger of peace, this 
most acceptable mediator between an estranged 
and misled people was denied a hearing- 
turned back in silence ; and the festival of 
death commanded to proceed. The book of 
time in all its ample folds contains no more 
inhuman or revolting spectacle. Those who 
love war for the mere sake of war, when the 
same objects can ba better attained by the 
gentle and holy influences of peace, are mon- 
sters of such frightful depravity that the 
blackest of those murdering ministers, "who 
in their sightb^ss substance wait on nature's 

mischief, " appear as angels of light and benev- 
olence in the comparison. 

Sir, I will not here pause to dwell in detail 
on the usages of civilized nations in conduct- 
ing civilizid warfare. But I challenge his- 
tory, that "reverend chronicler of the grave," 
whether in its sacred or profane records, to 
produce a parallel to the spirit and temper 
with which the party now in power has qan- 
ducted the awful struggle in which we are 
engaged. Commence at the early daybreak of 
the world, traverse all time, and explore all 
space, gropo your way among the vast heca- 



tombs of all former wars, examine the gory 
stains of every battle plain, ransack the ar- 
chives of kings, cabinets, and councils, and no 
instance, not one, can be found where a peo- 
ple claiming Christian civilization has waged 
a war of any kind against any foe in dumb, 
ferocious silence, without a word, a sign, or 
a look in behalf of a peaceful solution as long 
as we have now been engaged in this cruel 
conflict. "Blessed are the peace-makers," 
was not spoken for the present administrators 
of American affairs. They spurn the examples 
and teachings of all Christian ages and enlight- 
ened people. They drink not from the benev- 
olent fountains whose waters were unsealed to 
gladden and refresh the earth by the divine 
Nazarene on the Mount of Olives. They lave 
their lips, rather, in a stream whose waves, 
more putrid than the river of Egypt when 
smitten by the rod of Moses, taint the air 
with pestilence and calamity. Nor are they 
wholly without models in the past. The 
boundaries of civilization it is true, as I have 
stated, are barren of any precedents for their 
conduct, but the dark regions of barbarism 
furnish here and there a ghastly and horrible 
example of fury, hate, and revenge, which is 
now followed by the Executive and his parti- 
san supporters. Demons have occasionally, 
in the mysterious providence of God, visited 
the earth in the guise of men, to prey upon 
the human species from the mere love of 
slaughter and misery. Alaric, the Gothic 
monster, never treated with his enemies, 
never negotiated for a peace. The dying 
groan of the soldier on the field, the bitter 
wail of the widow and the choking sob of the 
orphan at home were equally music in his 
ear. Attila, the fierce Hun, known to history 
as " the scourge of God," neither sent or re- 
ceived commissioners to discuss and allay the 
■causes of war. He painted upon his banners 
the sword, and the sword alone, and pro- 
claimed that by that sign, and by it alone, he 
would conquer. Genghis Khan and Tamer- 
lane, preserved by the pen of the historian 
for universal execration, found no pursuit 
so pleasant as calling for more men, more 
men, more men for the harvest of death, 
and, like our present Executive, snufling 
with jests and ribaldry the warm taint of 
blood on every gale. The patriots who sur- 
rounded these barbarian chiefs spurned with 
eager indignation aU proffers of mediation, all 
efforts at compromise, ail talk of negotiation, 
just as do now the patriots who are seated on 
the v/est side of this chamber, and who pay 
court for eontracts at the west end of the 
avenae. Nor did Hyder Ali, that more mod- 
ern incarnation of unconditienal exterminat- 
ing war, regard with favor the suggestions of 
peace, when pausing for a moment like a cloud 
of wrath on the brow of the mountain he 
swept slown over the plains of the Carnatic, 
and smote them with blasts of fire, with indis- 
criminate woe. Sir, these are your examples. 
These are they who never said conciliate, but 
always said crush ; who never said harmon- 



ize, but who always said destroy ; who de- 
nounced fraternal aifection and embraced the 
doctrine of subjugation ; who never sought 
to restore peaceful relations with their neigh- 
bors, but who always sought to ruin them by 
confiscation and plunder, whose voice was for- 
ever like the voice of Moloch in hell, and the 
voice of those who now rule this nation, for 
war, for mere war, and war alone, as a cure 
for every evil, a remedy for every grievance 
fancied or real. With what loathing and ab- 
horrence does & Christian world now regard 
these destroyers of their kind ! All countries 
and every people utter a cry of horror at the 
mention of their names. No pillar, no monu- 
ment, no fountain, no grove perpetuates their 
place in the respect of a single human being 
that ever lived or died. And yet who will 
compare the ages in which they enacted their 
various tragedies to the one in which we live, 
and call them to such an account as awaits 
those who in this period of gospel light have 
fashioned the Administration of the American 
Republic on the principles and practices of 
unenlightened barbarians ? 

But 1 will cease to reason on this point by 
comparison. I will grasp the naked question 
which the supporters of this Administration 
have so persistently clamored into the public 
ear for the last three wretched years. Is it 
right in itself to treat with those who are in 
rebellion, with a view to a restoration of their 
allegiance, and thus to ensure the domestio 
tranquility ? If we draw an answer from tha 
conduct of this Government in former in- 
stances of treasonable resistance to law that 
answer is all in favor of negotiation and , 
compromise. Washington set the example 
in the case of Pennsylvania, and Jackson fol- 
lowed it in the more celebrated case of South 
Carolina in 1832. Incur wars with foreign 
powers the same course has uniformly been 
pursued. And wo ourselves were the objects 
of similar treatment even from the tyrannical 
ministry of George III in the days of the 
revolution. Commissioners from the Court 
of England came to our shores more than 
once a year during that struggle to treat for 
a return of the rebellions colonies to the 
union of the British Empire. But I shall 
not content myself with the enlightened pre- 
cedents furnished by the history of our own 
and other countries. Is there no higher 
standard of moral right to which to appeal ? 
Is the voice of Him who spake as never man 
spake hushed and stifled by the hoarse cry 
of passion and rage ? Have those pages which 
blaze with inspiration and which contain all 
the principles of national as well as individual 
morality and justice lost their light and power 
in this unhappy land ? Can a government 
long survive or hope to escape retributive 
punishment which blots out the doctrines of 
Christ in the regulation of its affairs ? Shall 
a sneer, the sneer of the Jacobin and the 
Atheist deter me from seeking the path of 
public as well as private duty in the declared 
record of the Great Father of us all f Have 



Robespierre and Marat come from their dis- 
honored graves to dethrone God and to give us 
the hideous infidelity of the French Revolu- 
tion ? Sir, I ask you to go with me to the un- 
sullied fountain of eternal truth : 

" Jloreovcr if thy brother shall trespass against 
thee, go and tell him his fault between theo and 
him alone ; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained 
thy brother. 

"But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee 
one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three 
witnesses every word may be established. 

" And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it 
unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the 
church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man 
and a publican." 

In these brief but comprehensive sentences 
are embraced the great principles of social 
harmony, individual charity, and national fra- 
ternity. They were written by divinity to 
convey a lesson of humane philosophy into 
every department of life and to every succeed- 
ing age. They furnish the text for every 
treaty of peace which nations ever framed to 
prevent the effusion of blood. They inculcate 
the duty of not ono only, but repeated at- 
tempts at reconciliation ; and those attempts, 
too, upon the part of those who have suffered 
the injury. Under the malignant auspices, 
however, of the present hour in this afflicted 
country, what a contrast is presented to these 
saered passages ! Not only do we refuse to 
go to our brother who has committed the 
trespass, but we reject him when he oflfers to 
come to us. 

Sir, I take my stand on these immortal 
maxims and appeal to the native justice of 
the human heart. I appeal to those instincts 
of charity and benevolence by which it is al- 
lied to the attributes of deity. The plain 
people of America, those who, with honest 
hands earn their daily bread, whose wearing 
apparel is not purple and fine linen. Hashing 
with diamonds and pearls purchased by the 
blood and tears of millions — to them, in their 
humble homes, darkened perhaps by the death 
of the first-born, I make this solemn invoca- 
tion. Before that pure and unselfish tribunal 
I lodge my cause in behalf of domestic tran- 
quility, and tiender the Bible as authority for 
the princfples which I declare. By the voice 
of my own heart, unseduced by gain and un- 
awed by terror, I know what will be the ver- 
dict of an incorruptible and free people. But 
there is another class who preside over the 
ministrations of this inspired book, and who 
mingle with their offerings to God the poison 
of political prejudices, before whom the cause 
of humanity, union, and peace need not be 
presented. That large portion of the clergy 
of the land who, claiming to be the chosen 
agents of the merciful Uedeemer, fill the cup 
of his sacrament with rancor and vengeance, 
hear none of the sweet, angelic tones which 
plead from every page of his gospels in favor 
that individual and national charity which 
suffereth long and is kind. They teach their 
flocks no longer to hunger and thirst after 



righteousness, but to hunger and thirst for 
the blood of their enemies. They ascend the 
sacred desk no more to pray that gentle peace 
like the dews of Heaven may descend upon 
our wounded and distracted country, but to 
declaim in warlike strains in the face of the 
Almighty upon the delight which they feel in 
the infliction of human agony. They hav« 
reversed the order of the millenium which 
the Christian world has look'^d ferward to 
since the days of the prophets. The ene 
which they hail in fond anticipation is that in 
which every plough-share shall become a 
swerd, and every pruning-hook a spear ; in 
which conscription, slaughter, and taxation 
shall go hand in hand; "when the keepers 
of the house shall tremble, and the strong 
men shall bow themselves, and the grinders 
cease because they are few, and those that 
look out of the windows be darkened, and the 
doors shall be shut in the streets when the 
sound of the grinding is low : * * because 
man goeth to his Jong home, and the mourners 
go about the streets." 

To these men much of the sorrow which 
now overshadows our homes is properly at- 
tributable. They have ever been, and are 
to-day, the foremost enemies of domestic tran- 
quility. Agitation on matters pertaining to 
civil government has been their element. 
Sedition against laws which conflict with their 
ignorant and selfish bigotry has been their 
favorite calling in all countries and in every 
age. They have a higher law than the sermon 
on the mount ; and the word of God is made 
to fit the Procustean bed of their blind and 
furious prejudices, which they mistake for 
conscience. Sir, I here proclaim as a fact to 
which all history attests, that wherever in 
the tide of time the ministry of the Most High 
have assumed as a part of their duties the 
control of affairs of State and the policy of 
nations, they have appeared as the advocates 
of despotism, the friends of high prerogative, 
the defenders of oppression, the allies of 
tyranny — obstacles in the pathway of pro- 
gress, enemies to popular rights, and extor- 
tioners of the poor and laboring masses. I 
might dwell long on the evidence which the 
old and the new world furnish on this point. 
That great author and majestic thinker, Buc- 
kle, whom I have already quoted, in speaking 
of ths conduct of the political clergy in the 
reign of James II, says : 

" They looked on in silence while the King was 
amassing the materials with which he hoped to 
turn a free government into an absolute monarchy. 
They saw Jeffreys and Kirke torturing their fellow- 
subjects. They saw the jails crowded with pris- 
oners, and the scaffolds streaming with blood. They 
were well pleased that some of the best and ablest 
men in the kingdom should be barbarously perse- 
cuted ; that Baxter should bo thrown into prison, 
and that Howe should bo forced into exile." 

1 pause but for a moment to point to the 
history of puritan Massachusetts as a con- 
firmation of my statement on this side of the 
ocean. What oppression did a political, 



priesthood fail to approve ? What 'cruelty 
did they not instigate and sanction in the 
early days of that famous colony ? They 
scourged, seared, cropped, burned, and gib- 
Deted the bodies of those who were unable 
to conform their views in all matters, civil 
and religious, to the reigning fanaticisms ; 
and then consigned their soula to the regions 
of the lost. Carpenter, in his standard his- 
tory of Massachusetts, a work warmly par- 
tial to that State, says : 

"In July, 1656, several Quakers arrived in Mas- 
fachusetts from Barbadoee, two of whom were 
women. Fully aware of the contemptuous disre- 
gard for existing ordinances indulged in by the 
more zealous of tho sect in England, the magistrates 
in Boston brought the law against heresy to bear 
upon the intruders and ordered their immediate ar- 
Cdit. After their persons had been examined for 
those marks which were supposed at that period to 
mdicato such as dealt in witchcraft, no satanic 
signs being discovered, their trunks were rifled, and 
tho books found therein ordered to bo publicly 
burned. A brief imprisonment was imposed upon 
them, but they were finally released and banished 
tho colony. Several others who arrived subse- 
quently were sent back to England by the vessels 
in which they came. About the same time a law 
was passed to prevent their introduction into the 
colony, and imposing tho penalty of stripes and 
coercive labor upon all Quakers that should in- 
fringe it. * * Some of the women were 
whipped, and several men condemned to lose an 
ear. * * AVhen seized they oCFered no re- 
sistance. Sentenced to be flogged, they yielded 
with entire satisfaction their backs to the execu- 
tioner." 

Finding that these atrocious measures were 
QOt sufficient to crush, out the liberty of 
thought, a law was passed, says the same 
historian, in 1658, banishing the Quakers 
from the United Colonies of New England, 
and forbidding their return under pain of 
do&th : 

" This sanguinary and unjustifiable enactment 
was carried by one vote only. Various staunch 
friends oftheGovernmentstrong'y protested against 
it, not only as cruel, but as liable to invite the per- 
secution it sought to avoid. Tho result soon proved 
how well grounded was tho fear. Marmaduko 
Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer 
courted the danger to which they were exposed and 
quietly awaited the operation of the law. In Sep- 
tember, 1058, they were seized, and, after trial, 
condemned to be hanged. The sentence was car- 
ried into effect upon Robinson and Stephenson, but 
Mary Dyer was reprieved upon the scafi'old, and 
again thrust from the colony. Resolute in seeking 
a martyr's death, she returned soon after and was 
publicly executed on Boston Common." 

" Oh ! the rarity of Christian charity." Will 
not some New England clergyman of modern 
orthodoxy shed at least one tear over the 
scarlet sins of his own ancestors who assisted 
in the murder of this poor woman on Boston 
Common, while he is weeping as if his head 
was a fountain of waters over the landing of 
the Dutch ship with slaves at Jamestown ? 

But again, says the same friendly historian : 

" It was at the beginning of this year that many 
persons of piety and good understanding were j 



again led to believe in the great prevalence of 
witchcraft in the province. Prominent among the 
most credulous of these was Cotton Mather, son to 
the Reverend Increase Mather, for some time past 
tho agent of Massachusetts in England, and him- 
self a clergyman. * * « The aliirm of witch- 
craft was again sounded. Tho ministers fasted 
and ])rayed with the distressed father. Tho villag- 
ers of Salem also fasted and prayed ; and tho fear 
of demonaical influences becoming general, a day 
of fasting and prayer was specially set apart to bo 
kept by the whole colony. The belief in witch- 
craft being thus solemnly recognized and fostered, 
it was not long before tho delusion spread across 
the whole breadth of tho province. Tho number of 
victims so rapidly increased that many of tho 
colonists, perfectly panic-stricken, became the ac- 
cusers of others, lest they should be brought under 
suspicion themselves. Tho execution at Salem 
village of Mr. Burroughs, a minister of blameless 
life, was a terrible instance of the power which the 
delusion exercised over the strongest minds in the 
community. For fifteen months this strange be- 
lief held full possession of the popidar faith. Dur- 
ing this period, out of twenty-eight persons capi- 
tally convicted of witchcraft, ninteeen had been 
hanged and one pressed to death." 

Sir, let not these remarks and records of 
faithful history be construed into an attack 
upon the ministers of our divine religion. 
I have endeavored rather to portray the evil 
results which flow from a desecration of that 
high calling. To my mind there is no voca- 
tion on this side of the mysterious river 
which divides time from eternity so lofty, 
no career of life so serenely beautiful and 
bordering so closely upon Heaven as the 
benevolent pursuits of him who tenders the 
cup of salvation to the lips of a fallen world. 
A halo hovers around his head which tells 
that he walks in the footsteps of his blessed 
Master. In the presence of such a man I 
would stand uncovered and do him reverent 
homage. And there are many such whose 
pure and noiseless lives pass almost unheeded 
by the busy, striving world, but around 
whom the comforting angels of the Lord en- 
camp by night and by day. In their keeping 
are all the future hopes of the chprch — the 
Christian welfare of mankind. The youth of 
the land should sit at their feet and learn 
wisdom, and both young and old should rise 
up and call them blessed. But ii this bright 
category of human excellence— this high 
galaxy of stars shining with an unearthly 
splendor — there is no place for such as take 
charge of churches by order of the War De- 
partment, and preach the gospel as commanded 
by the President of the United States. The 
vineyards where they labor will never bear 
tho fruits of peace — never smile with domes- 
tic tranquility. Before them I do not plead 
my cause. From them I expect io hear no 
voice save the continued and protracted cry of 
havoc. 

But, sir, I will be told by the advocates of 
force and violence as a remedy, and the sole 
remedy, for our troubles, that although the 
South might send commissioners to treat for 
peace, yet they would accede to no terms 



« 



gav*^ recognition and separation. In snpport 
of this view, certain propositions recently of- 
fered in the Congress at Richmond are cited. 
To my mind they indicate a far different con- 
clusion. It is true they do not signify to me 
that the power of the Southern people is ex- 
hausted ; that the rebellioa is crushed ; that 
a panic of fear prevails in the Southern mind; 
that a government, whether de facto or de 
jure, which can maintain an army of half a 
million of well armed men in the field is con- 
quered. I do not see the evidence of all this 
as some have professed to do every sixty 
days since the war began ; but I do see in 
these propositions an earnest desire upon the 
part of the South to conform to the usages 
of the civilized world, and to bring this un- 
happy and disastrous conflict to a close by the 
power of reason. It is true that certain ob- 
jects are declared for which they desire to 
negotiate ; but does that fact include final 
results which may grow out of negotiation 
when once commenced ? What nation at war 
with another ever opened communication for 
a treaty of peace by proclaiming in advance 
the precise terms on which it was to be con- 
cluded ? Such a course peremptorily excludes 
the very idea of negotiation. Commissioners 
would have no discretion, and reason and ar- 
gument would have no room to act. Such is 
not, in my judgment, the meaning of this 
movement in the Confederate Congress. Sir, 
what is this contest ? What interests does 
it involve ? They are very distinct and 
simple when divorced from fanaticism. On 
the part of those who have kept their alle- 
giance, it is a struggle to maintain the bound- 
aries of the Republic, and thus defeat the 
ruinous doctrine that a State has a right to 
secede. On the part of those in rebellion, it 
is an efifort, in their estimation, to preserve 
the integrity of their local laws, their social 
institutions, the right to control their do- 
mestic affairs free from Federal interference. 
With some, this attempt is made under a 
claim of the right of secession ; others pro- 
claim a revolution, which is the right of all 
people if grievances sufficient exist as a jus- 
tification. But the people of the South are 
united in the objects at which they aim, and 
if they could be attained in the Union, and 
without war, would they not gladly embrace 
and accept them rather than continue in a 
state of endless hostility, which is destroying 
the very interests they seek to protect ? Why, 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Garfield) de- 
clared a few days ago on this floor, that if 
the privates of the opposing armies in the 
field were permitted to come together in 
peace, they would speedily remove all our 
troubles ; and yet he spoke and voted in 
favor of taking from even the wives and 
children of the Sauthern masses, who he 
asserts, are thus willing to return to the 
Union, the last foot of soil, and the last crust 
of bread by which life is sustained. With 
such evidence then as this can we justify our- 
selves before God or man if we fail to respond 



to the action of the South in favor of negotia- 
tion, which promises in advance such happy 
results? Let all grievances, whether fancied 
or real, be coasidered by candid statesman- 
ship. Let there be safe and unrepealable 
guarantees adopted against those that are 
are found to be real ; and those that are fan- 
cied will be easily explained away. Five en- 
lightened commissioners from each section, 
imbued with the spirit of Christian benevo- 
lence animated by an unselfish love of coun- 
try and of their fellow-men, meeting by the 
consent and encouragement of their respec- 
tive authorities, could, and in my solemn and 
deliberate judgment would, in ninety days 
agree upon terms which would be acceptable 
to a large majority of the American people, 
and by which the Union of these States would 
be more firmly established than ever before — 
the lives of millions spared, the hard earn- 
ings of the laborer left for him to enjoy, peace 
and domestic tranquility restored. I would 
improve the armistice which winter de- 
clares to achieve many bloodless and per- 
manent victories in favor of the Union and 
the Constitution. I would not stop there. I 
would extend the armistice as long as there 
was hope of inducing the return of a single 
State. But suppose negotiation should fail. 
Then, indeed, would this Administration be 
armed with an argument in favor of war 
which it has never yet possessed. This fact 
is well understood by the Executive and his 
advisers, but they refuse to negotiate because 
they have reason to believe that the Union 
would thus be restored and the war ended. 
But slavery would not thereby be abolished, 
and the scheme of building up a despotic, 
centralized Federal Government would be de- 
feated. The war, therefore, goes on ; th» 
young men of the nation are swept into their 
graves upon the plain of battle, and the old 
men become slaves to the tax gatherer, not to 
restore the Union, but to give a worthless 
liberty to the black man, and to strike down 
the legal rights and privileges of the white 
man. 

Sir, upon this question of negotiation, con- 
cession, compromise, and Union, I appeal for 
approval to my own conscience. It sustains 
me with all the force of a burning conviction 
of duty. By it I am lifted beyond the roach 
of partisan malice. I appeal to the people ! 
The voice and humane instincts of honest na- 
ture will plead my cause in their hearts. At 
their hands I fear no evil for the cotintry. 
They are just, and will appreciate a plain and 
inherent element of right. I appeal to future 
vears. When candor, reason, and Christian- 
ity sit in judgment on this struggle, every 
line which records the history of war or peace 
in all former ages, tells me that their verdict 
will be in favor of the principles which I ad- 
vocate. I seize this hour of future triumph 
by anticipation. That it will come I entertain 
no more doubt than I do that I breathe the 
air of life this moment. I appeal, finally, to 
God before whom I stand, and into whose 



presence we all hasten to answer for our con- 
duct and our motive?. In tbat awful hour I 
humbly trust and believe that my fecbl« ef 
forts to turn aside the devouring edj^e of the 
Bword ; to stay the hand of th^ great r^-aper 
death ; to pause in the horrid work of send- 
ing souls to their eternal account without re- 
pentance or pardon; to stop bereavement, 
woe, and tears around every fireside • to 
brighten the mournfisl face of the land with 
the radiance of peace ; to reconstruct and re- 
store a fraternal and harmonious Union will 
meet with the approval of the Father and go 
far towards relieving the newly liberated and 
trembling spirit of the terrors which sur- 
round it. 

But, Mr. Chairman, what other declared 
purposes of the Constitution for the accom- 
phshment of which this government was 
established have been carried out by the 
policy and administration of the party now 
in power? Do they proimte the general wel- 
fare f With the priciples of justice every- 
where suppressed, .he blessing of liberty 
annihilated throughout all our borders, and 
the domestic tranquility utterly destroyed, it 
IS almost needless to enquire what is left to 
constitute the general welfare. But it is my 
painful duty on this occasion net only to show 
that the principles of free government are 
dying, rapidly dying before our faces, but 
that the material prosperity, the absolute 
piiysical resources of the country are peri-*h- 
mg also. The welfare, the strength and 
glory of a nation are dependent in a vast 
measure upon the extent of its population 
and the amount of its wealth. Next to the 
virtue and intelligence of the people their 
numbers constitute the power and dignity of 
a btate. The ancient commandment and the 
blessing delivered to the original founders of 
tne human race was to be fruitful, multiply 
and replenish the earth. And one of the 
ruihest promises to the Patriachs of old was 
uiat their tribes and their descendents should 
increase until they became as the leaves of 
the forest and the sands of the sea shore, 
t-very public ruler who by wise political and 
«ocial economy has rapidly swelled the popu- 
lation of Lis country, holds a place in history 
asa benefactor of his kind. Every human 
being IS a machine of labor. Each head and 
each hand is a producer. The busy brain and 
the active muscle are perpetually adding to 
the storehouses, the granaries, and the mer- 
chant ships of the world. It was a blessin- 
and not a curse ; it was in mercy and not in 
wrath that man was commanded to eat his 
bread m the sweat of his face. By obedience 
to this command the glory of civilization 
auorns the earth, and commerce penetrates 
the most distant seas. The fulfillment of 
this decree redeems the savage face of nature, 
builds up the great marts of trade, patroniz.« 
sciences and letters, erects temples to art and 
progress, end is a forerunner of the Chiistiau 
Tac . '^ ^^® fountain of all wealth 

and of all happiness. Nations and individ- 



uals are alike utterly and entirely dependent 
upon It for th-ir prosperity. And national 
loro.p^rty is simply the result of individual 
abor. The humble and obscure toil of the 
honest ploughiuan, who 

"Homeward plods his weary way" 
at nightfall is the source of all" the nation's 
greatness, the foundation of all its vast enter- 
prises, thesupportofallits boasted revenues- it 
.3 tho small spring breaking intoarivuletfrom 
Uie hill side which flowing on and mingling 
with the other waters of its kindred at last 
swell3_ into an ocean on whose bosom the 
destinies of the world are determined All 
the great authors who hare written on the 
subject of the wealth of nations have recog- 
nized this as a fundamental truth. Adam 
Smith embraces it in the first sentence ol his 
immortal work. He says : 

'; The annual labor of cvury nation is the fund 
which ovigmuXly supplies it with all thcnecessariee 
and conveniences of life, which it annually con- 
sume<= and which consist always either in the im. 
media produce of that labor, or in what is pm- 
chased wuh that produce from other nations." 

Locke, in his equally celebrated treatise on 
civil government is still more explicit and 
c.ear upon this pakt. H, uses the followine 
of kbof ^' ^^'°^ '"''^^^^ *^^ ^^°^° philosophy 

"'Tis labor then, which puts the greatest part of 
10 value upon land, without which it nould .carcclv 



the , a.u^ ui,..u lauu, Kiznoiu icktch it wouhl .carceh 
letcorth muiUiuvj. ' Tis to that we owe the great- 
est part of all its useful products; for all that 
the straw, bran, bread of that acreof wheat is more 
worth ban the product of an acre of good land 
which hcs waste is all the effect of labor For 'tis 
not merely the ploughman's pains, the reaper's, and 
the thrasher s toil, and the baker's sw-at is to ba 
counted into the bread we eatj the labor of thooa 
wao broke the oxen, who digged and wrought the 
iron and stones, who foiled and framed the timber 
employed about the plough, mill, ovon, or any other 
utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to this 
corn, from its being seed to bo sown, to its being 
made bread, must all be charged in the account of 
labor, and received as an effect of that: nature and 
ttie earth furnishing only the almost worthless ma 
tQrials as in themselves. 'Twould bo a stranze 
catalogue of things that industry provided and 
made use of about every, loaf of bread, before it 
camo to our use, if we could trace tiiem. From 
wood, leather, barks, timber, stone, brick coals 
hme, cloth, dyeing-drugs, pitch, tar, musts' rope»' 
and a'l materials made u.^o of in the ship that 
brought away the commodities made use of hy any 
of the workmen, to any part of the work ; all-wbich 
tw.mld bo almost impossibk, at least too lone to 
reckon up." ° 

Sir, aside then from motives of humanity 
what shall be said of an administrative policy 
which is unnecessarily depopulating the na- 
tion ? Every unsanguined field of strife cov- 
ered with the noble and once animated forms 
of American citizens, is an irreparable loss to 
the true wealth of the country. When the 
last call for troops which has been made upon 
the laborers of the fend, by the Executive 
shall have teen complied with, more than 
two miUions of men will have gone to the 



14 



fields of death. In the y^ar iSflO, the nnm- 
ber of voters in thn Uoue 1 S-«es locluding 
all the seciums wa., 4 061,193. Th« States 
Xh r.ma:«ed fauhtul to tue Umon con- 
tain.d, at the commeueement of this war 
about three millions. This may fairly be 
«.^ as the number of laborers m the 
W SUtes three years ago, for while many 
So voterre too ofdto wo'rk yet pcrh.ps an 
Idual number are capable of labor who are 
too young to vote 



lon'-er do vou expect the toiling mUlions to 
end"ure in silence? When the curtain first 
rose on the hateiul scene of this civil war, 
the country was mocked with a call for seven- 
tv-five thousand men, and our prt'edy ears 
were saluted from high quarters with the 
flattering story that the moon would Ecarcely 
wax and wane until the Government would 
aeain possess its own. You tell me of states- 
manship ; you tell me of honesty in the pre- 
sent conduct of our disastrous affairs. Sir, 



»v,- A. «f +TiA not a nlan laid down in the oeginnmg but 
It- will thus be seen that t-O'thir^^ ^^^Jf I ^ ^^, ^^, , promise made by 

labor ug population of the ^^^^^^^^J^^.t This Administration to the people but what 
ready been levied upon by thi* '^'f ^A^'''^^" ^ been broken. The armies of the rebel- 
administration, and drawn away f^«JJ |fM f^J'^ S stand with a defiant front almost m 
business of production, figures cannot be 1^;^"^^^;^^^ ^^pj^^l . ^„a ^^e hoarse and ter- 
aad the census tables do not a°ceive a ^ j ^f a new conscription aie now 

prosperity of tbis gov^^^^.^^.^ronfcaStan ^^^^^^^^^^ o^^^ ^^« ^^^^^^^ '^^ '"*,"' '" S" 
labor of its people This is its mily ca^i^al go g .^^,, of the people as the 

In proportion as the population l^ <^ii^^°;^^^^ P; ^ ^f tl,^ raveH to the life of i^uncan. Do 

or diverted from productive P^bui in th« ^^o^'J/; ^^^ ^,^ Hot in th« lives and for- 

eame proportion is tl^^?«°^ll7iH%ur" tunes of the many imagine that they can 

' prolong forever the deception which they 

have imposed upon an anxious and trusting 

^^But on this vital question of the rapid 
decrease of our laboring population, and 
the consequent prostration of the general 
welfare, -I will doubtless be pet by an in- 
dignant denial from the other side of the 
chamber. I submit, therefore, the follow- 
ing extract from the last message of the Pre- 
sidput * 

" I a^ain submit to your consideration the expe- 
diency 'J.f establishing a system for the encourage- 
ment of immigration. Although this .ource ot na- 
tional wealth and strength is again flowing with 
greater freedom than for scvera years before the 
insurrection occurred, there is still a great deficiency 
in every field of industry, especially in agriculture, 
and in our mines, as well of iron as the precioas 
metals. While the demand for labor is thus in- 
creased here, tens of thousands of persons destitute 



stroved. And no nation ever long sur 
vivedVhe shock which the abstraction of two- 
thirds of its population inflicted upon every 
branch and department of industry. A par- 
^{.Tis will sei/e every ^^^^^ f, 
KS^Sd Z\rZlrL wm wither and 
die The fountains will be dried up, and the 
river wiU cease to flow. Sir, I am dea mg 
in no Imaginary picture. Go to the regions 
n^ a^r iculmre, on which all else depends. 
You w I here hear the cry that the laborers 
are fTw. One man cannot da the work of 
three ; and two are gone and but one is oft to 
sow the seed and reap the harvest. I have 
seen the wife ai:d the mother tilling the soil 
fmy own district ; her children following m 
the furrow, and their father away in the 
-army I h^ve seen broad fertile acresm the 
• We/t lyin^ waste and idle for the want ofhands 
to place them in cultivation. How.long can 



rloW.lODg cim I creasea nere, Lcua v^i vu.-^^.l.,«. i 

,„ ^ long WiU of remunerative occapation are thronging our for- 

this state Of things continue? How long wo ^^^ ^^^^.^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ 

one-thirdofour usual proauce meet the dec^g.^^^^ ^ery cheap assis- 

mands of our increased and stupe^duous ex ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^.^^^^^ ^^^^,. 
pendit ures ? How long ^an diminished pro- ^^^ foreigner-to the stran- 

Suction and multiplied taxation go hand m 1 ^^ * ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^.^^ liberty or 

hand ? How long cau you continue to destroy ger w ^^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^ 

the laborer, and at the same time raise om^^^^^.^^ ^^^ ^^.^ ^^.^^ supporters took 
a revenue from the produc s "fl^^^'^ J^^^^'^ I ^he midnight oath to disfranchise him because 
tendency and speedy result of og^P"';^°M f his reli|ious faith, and oppressed him in all 
carceer are plain and inevitab e Sooji' J^^7. o ^^^g^^ ^ ^^^^^^^ ^.^ ^ ^^ ^ 

soon, the fruits ot industry will prove maae ou ^ ^ ^ ^^ ual enjoyment of 

quat; to meet the ^nmial demands oth ad e^^^^^^^^ 

^'ational Treasury, and then the land itseii, | f^i^^.^_^^. _^ ^^^ ^.^j^ ^^^^^ sorrowful emo- 
tion. >viu ... people of this once proud land 
listen to the voice of America pleading with 



^'ational Treastiry, and theiiu.--^^.— ^^ But with wh 

the farm, the homestead, ^^^f^ Jj^^f^J^'^^fJ',^ Tons will the people of this once proud land 
and swept away. Ai*e you reac^ tor ti i. ( ^.^^^^ ^^ the voice of Amc 



Are ;:v ready r the^land tax upon uncul 
UvateJ ficlds"^^ in addition to the tribute 
whkhwe already pay to fanaticism and cor- 
ruption? If you are, then eternal war, vast 
coLcriptions no negotiation, no >e™°> "« 

re:.l zation of all youP uop^^a. ^" 
profltgate destruction of human life^andwan 
toa and wi.ked overthrow of the whole nat 
ural system of American labor, how much 



the populations of Europe, and offering them 
pecuniary inducements to come and take the 
places of our lost and dead-to fill the emp y 
chairs around b-reaved firesides-to supply 
the demands which war and death have made 
in the cornfields and at harvest time! And 
yet, the destroying angel is to continue to 
hover in every blast ; the fierce spirit of the 
olass and scythe is to pursue bis insatiate 



15 



career ; tlie flower of our manliood are to be 
•cut down ; strangers from foreign lands are to 
occupy their vacant seats ; and it is treason 
to attempt to stay this horrid holocaust of 
human sacrifice by a restoration of the Gov- 
ernment upon the principles which were satis 
factory to Washington ! The rebel chief at 
Richmond, who makes open war against the 
Union, and the Executive here who does not 
make war for it, and who would not accept its 
restoration to-day on the ancient doctrines of 
the Constitution, are engaged by conscription 
force and violence in hulling against each 
other the unwilling and peaceful populations 
of every section; bleeding, palpitating and 
mangled ; to struggle, to combat and to die, 
like the gladiators in the amphithe^itre of 
Rome, butchered to make a Roman holi- 
day. These are facts which •will not escape 
history, and yet, the consent of the gov- 
erned is the just measure of power which 
a public ruler can exercise in a free gov- 
ernment, and we fondly imagine that we still 
are free ! 

^ Bat in immediate alliance with the ques- 
tion of population arises the consideration of 
the amount of burthen which is to be borne. 
While looking on the one hand in fadnes-g 
and grief at the depletion and destruction of 
the laboring masses, we are compelled to turn 
and gaze with apprehension and terror at the 
frightful proportions, and increasing magni- 
tude of our public indebtedness. As the 
ability of the people to meet taxation becomes 
each day more feeble, the demands upon 
their toil and their resources accumulate 
with appalling velocity. I shall deal iu cold 
and steady figures. What I assert upon the 
subject of the national debt I stand prepared 
to make good, as time, the test of truth, has 
done for me heretofore. On the 2lst day of 
May, 1S62, on this floor, I made the following 
statement : 

" It is safe, then, to conclude that the year that 
13 to come, and on which we are just entering — 
tie second year of the war — will swell the indebt- 
edness of this Government to the alarmiug sum of 
$2,000,000,000." 

The fierce clamor which broke upon my 
head here and elsewhere, for that statement, 
will not be easily forgotten. I was honored 
.by an official contradiction from the Secretary 
of the Treasury himself produced on this floor 
by the gentlemen from Massachusetts, [Mr. 
Dawes] . Then came the indignant outcries of 
injured patriotism from the throats of that 
venal and slavish class who earn the favor of 
princes, and purchase the privileges of plun- 
der by echoing the words of. their master. 
But I appealed to time' for my vindication, 
and now here again to-day, I challenge my 
accusers to the issue. 

On the 6th day of March, 1863, when 
the Thirty-seventh Congress adjourned, less 
than ono year from the date of my esti- 
mate, the appropriations of money from 
the Federal Treasury, in the payment of 



the public espenditurea, stood as follows : 

First session 37th Con<i;res8, - - $270 071 500 

Second " " . . STR.IOLMiOO 

'•'■^^ird " « . . 971,128,100 



Total amount, -$2,128,309,200 

It will thus be seen, that in less than the 
time by me specifi>id in my speech of May 
21pit, 1862, that same Congress, of which I 
wag then a member, appropriated $128,309- 
200 more than even I predicted would be con- 
sumed by our alarming rate of expnr.se. Re- 
ports may be written by able and skillful pens, 
and speeches may be made by eloqueftt, and 
plausible tongu*^s, in order to disguise these 
figures, and dwitfie the people still furthnr to 
their ruin, but tho murd.-r of tiie nation's 
welfare at last will out, and bankruptcy, like 
an uneasy and troubled ^host, with its 
shrivelled face and skeleton fingers, will 
come to plague and torment the faithless 
murderers. It may be an unwelcome task to 
portray these facts now, but the hour is fast 
approaching, in which the sons and daugh- 
ters of honest toil will lay bitter maledictions 
on tho authors of this oppression, and thank 
those who have pointed out their danger. 

In tho report of the Secretary of the Trea- 
sury submitted at the opening of the present 
session of Congress, we find his estimate for 
the fiscal year ending Jane 30th, I8()4, of the 
expenses of the GovernOient amounting to 
$l,t'99,73l.960. It is true that he amuses 
the country by a conjecture that a consider- 
able portion of that sum will not bo exp«-nded 
at the close of tho fiscal je^r. He asks that 
it may all be appropriated, but gently inti- 
mates that some of it may remain in his 
hands, not paid out on tho 30th June, 18G4. 
But inasmuch as we have already at this 
session passed deficiency bills over and 
above his estimates to the extent of more 
than a hundred millions of dollars, I must 
decline making any calculation upon any 
lower basis than the full amount of his own '' 
fi:,'ures. Then taking tho appropriations 
already made up to March 4th, 1863, as above 
stated : 

$2,128,309,200 
Add the estimate of the Secretary up 

to June 30, 1804, ...... 1,099,731.906 



$3,228, <)41,1G0 
We thus have from the ofiieial records, an 
indebtedness on the oOlh of Juno rext, not 
more than four months distant, reaching the 
sum of three thousand, two hundred and 
twenty-eight millions, forty-one thousand, 
one hundred and sixty dollars. Pause for a 
moment, ye sweating tax -payers, and com- 
prehend if you can the Weight of this load. 
I pause with you, for my heart is now at 
home clinging to the scenes of intelligent hus- 
bandry which I represent here, and which I 
seek to save from desolation. 

But the Secretary of the Treasury has 
given us a forecast of another year of the fu- 
ture. Commencing again on the 1st of July, 



w 



1864 and closing Jane 30ih, 1SG5, lie giv-s 
us his estimates of the expeudim es ot ano- 
ther fiscal year. Ue places them— 
A.t --------- - $1>151)815.0S8 

Add the r.mount already estimated 

uptoJuneo0th,1861, - - - 3,223,041,100 



Totil debt, June 30th, 1865,. - - $1,37'J,856 243 
From this amount ■ must be deducted the 
actual receipts from every source of revenue 
during the years of 186-3 and 1863, and the 
estimated r^^ceipts for the years of 1SG4 and 
1865. Allowing that the eitimates of the 
Secretary w/U prove correct in the future, 
which is exceedingly charitable in view of the 
past and we find that these receipts will 
amount in all to $519,643,155. Subtract this 
amount from the above sum, and we have left 
$3 8uO, 213.093. To this again, however, 
must be added at the lowest calculation, one 
hundred and fifty millions to cover the claims 
of States for advances to the Federal Govern- 
ment, and the claims of citizens for the des- 
truction of their property by the inevitable 
eperations of war. Thus the P^ibhc debt 
will stand, June 30th, 1865, at $4,010,213,093. 
Sir, in this calculation I have strained noth- 
ing'in order to swell the amount. Far other- 
wise^. I would gladlv diminish it if in my 
power. I have simply taken the amounts ap- 
propriated by a former Congress, and added 
the amounts which the Secretary of the Trea- 
surv asks shall bs appropriated for the years 
of 1804 and I8li5. I assume, and most safely 
I think in view of the past, thit all the money 
thus appropriated by Congress for specihed 
obi«-ts wiUbe spent. This is all, and you 
behold the apnalling result. I do not stop to 
take au account of State dabts, which count 
by hundreds of millions. I pass by the debts 
of counties, cities, towns, and various corpo- 
rations, all of which are a direct tax upon the 
people. I simply compute the Federal indebt- 
edness, and you have these frightful figures. 

Sir this debt now inevitably fastened up- 
on the American people, has no parallel in 
the history of nations. Its like is unknown 
ia the annals of mankind. It stands alone in 
its career of devastation. The power of lan- 
Buage cannot exaggerate it as an agent of des- 
truction. Mora than four thousand milhona 
of dollars ! The debt of England, which is 
now a p'-rmaneat curse, is less. Yet, since 
18''9 no Britiili Statesman has thought for an 
ins"tant that it would ever be finally paid. It 
commenced accruing in small proportions 
during the reign of Charles Il-two hundred 
Years ago. Succeeding wars rapidly increas- 
ed it, and baffled all the wisdom and res^ources 
of the Euglish people, in their long and faith- 
ful efforts to accomplish its payment. They 
piiy the interest and bequeath the piincipal, 
wiih all its crushing weight, to each succeed- 
ing generation. And even this burthen oq 
the labor of England is so great and so per- 
petual, that one-eighth of her citizens are m- 
nines of the poor-house, and almost another 
eighth have been driven by want from then- 



native land. We are to tread in the same 
blighted pathway, groaning wearily under a 
still heavier load— the cursed fruits of a sec- 
tional party, and financial corrupt on. We 
look out upon the field of the future. It lies 
dismal and endle:;3 before us. There is no 
land of rest in the distance for the tired tax- 
payer. There is no promise of deliverance 
brightening the sky before him. His step 
from this on is in a ceaseless treadmill, from 
which he will never escape. Are you afraid, 
men of labor throughout America, to look at 
this picture ? Will you turn away your faces 
and hug yourselves in the delusion that all 
is well, a little longer ? Will you punibU and 
denounce the faithful sentinel who crits %ut 
to you the approach of destruction 1 It may 
be so yet awhile. It is in the heart of man to 
put off the evil hour. Wo often take i efuge 
from danger by afTecting not to see it when we 
know it is inevitable. Death itself at last 
surprises us in the midst of the busy plana 
and pleasing aspirations of life, TL.e vou-.e of 
warning dies away OH the ear unheede-l by 
the heart. But this fact does not divorce a 
man in public station from the performance of 
his thankless duty. I shall here perform 
mine, and take all the reward I seek or desire, 
in the approbation of my own conscience— m 
the ever-present self-assurance that I kniow 
that I am acting for the welfare of my country. 
Sir, in order to enable us to grasp the 
mighty figures which will sum up our national 
debt sixteen months hence, let us indulge for 
a moment in comparisons. The grovrih of 
the American Republic, in all the elements of 
material wealth, from its birth to the hour of 
its present misfortunes had been the marvel 
and wonder of all time. It had strode upon 
the loftiest peaks of greatness with an easy 
and familiar sten. In peace or m war our 
glory was the same— the first of all nations. 
Our actions at home and abroad were up- 
on a scale of magnitude which dwarfed the 
giant achievements of history by contrast. 
But in all that time every item of our public 
expenditures would scarcely suffice to meet 
the demands of one year under our present 
system of ruin. Take the period of seventy- 
two years— those halcyon days of liberty and 
fraternity— from 1789 to 1861. During that 
space of happy time, for every year, and lor 
all purposes, the expenses of the Government . 

^"'^ ' $1,453,790,786 

For four years from 1861 to 1865 - 4,010,213,093 



Increase of expense in four years ^ _ ^ ^^ ^ 
over seventy-two years, - - - §-,yj(J,.l.-,oUi 

Four brief but terrible years under the pre- 
sent Administraiion will have consumed more 
than three times as much of the wealth the 
labor, the taxes of the people as every other 
Administration of the Government put to- 
gether from. Washington to James Buchanan! 
Do you still say, in view of this starthnglact, 
that there is no necessity for a chasge m our 
I policy and in our rulers in order to save us 



17 



from utter overthrow ? Are yon still con'erit i 
that this rate of expt^noiuire sh;ill contir.nfi ? ' 
How loDjj; can it conrinu' 1 Bv the statistics ! 
fuinisbed in the eensu-^ of I860, the valne of 
the real and p^rsonal property of the entire 
United States, before' war aud destruction had 
s.ssailed it, was $12 (iS4, GGO 005, Even admit- 
ting that it possesses thi^ sara*- value to day, 
yet the d«!>bt is OD<--third of the wlmle amount. 
Bat every one will atki owiedge that an as- 
scssnuut of the value oi the propi^rty through- 
cut the Ucited States now would not show 
n ore than two-thirds of its <ormer value. 
This wou d be about $S 000 COO 000. Ot this 
fum the pullic debt, in a few months, will 
le niore than one half. Half the grain in the 
f eld ; ha); the lorses in their stalls; half the 
cattle in tie pa-tures ; halt the hogs in the 
pens ; halt the lacd itstrlf, every oth«^r acre, 
will stand mor'gaeed for the payujeut of a 
four year.s' dreadiul expeiiment iu the use of 
the sword, ind the sword alone, in attempting 
a restoration of the Union. And even now, all 
over the land, tin: excis^'men, the tax gather 
erers are swf rming to enforce the foreclosure 
of this crui-hing ard relentless mortga^^e. It 
is held by credi;ors who have iron hearts. 
There will be no grace given ; no equity cf 
rederuption. Abi litionism is the principal 
holder ; and then contracts and fraud hold 
the bslance. 

But allcw me to make an application of this 
debt 10 that gr^at State — a portion of whose 
pcop'e I reprefent on this floor. The asstss- 
evl value of all the real and personal property 
of the i:eopl.'' of Indiana in 1860 was $411,- 
042,424 The proi ortion of the Federal debt 
which V ill a'tar-h to that State Jane 30, 1865, 
will le 8^85 980,519, It v.ill, therefore, bo 
Eeen that if three fourths of everything which 
the citizens and property holders of Indiana 
possess was put up at auction and sold ac- 
cording to the appraisemt nt of the census re- 
coTt, it would barely suiSce to meet the de- 
mands wLich the Federal Government is 
making upon the wealth and industry ot that 
State. I am aware that all this will fall idJy 
upon the ears of those who are prolonging 
this war from motives of despotism and un- 
hallowed gain ; but I speak to day for the 
farmer and • the mechanic — for the laborer 
whose heart is filled with unselfish patriotism, 
and whose hands are unstained by plunder. 
I call upon that class to carefully estimate 
these burthens, for on their weary shoulders 
they are to be borne. 

But again. I will be met here by the fact 
that the payment of the principal of the public 
debt will be pestponed from one generation to 
another, and that like the people of England 
we will only be called upon for its interest. 
Taking even that unworthy view of the ques- 
tion let us Bee what will be the inevitable 
annual demands apon American labor in order 
to avoid open and acknowledged bankruptcy. 
This estimate I make upon the basis of peace, 
after this war ^hall have closed, and the ut- 
m(f&t r^duetioiXiUiadQ consistent with our alter 



cd condition. I challenge scrutiny into its 
substantial correctness : 

Civil lift $8rir0,000 

Foreign intercourfe '2,50i),lH>0 

lute ior, pt-iuiniiH, Indians, etc., . . . 2ih00 0(O 

W r I»pp ) tmc nt, 120.0 0,f,00 

■> aw Dc-a imtiit , . . 2.') 000,000 

Misc'elian- cue, lighthouse?, building, . L'.'i (lOO.Ot 

$2(11 odl^('l0O 
Interest on the pub ic debt, .... 24().6lj^7j5 

$441,612,765 

Every one of the above items is put much 
lower than I candidly believe it will be, but 
even at these rates we find that each year of 
the darkened future, the Treasury Department 
will reach forth the hungry hand of revenue 
and seize upon the fruits of industry to the 
extent of four hundred and forty-one millions 
six hundred and twelve thousand, seven hun- 
dred and eighty-five dollars. And the pay- 
ment of this vast sum leaves us as much in 
debt as before, for it pays not a dollar of the 
enormous principal. It is simply what must 
be annually paiu to prevent instant repudia- 
tion. It constitutes the curre'it expenses by 
which alone the Government is enabled to 
live from day to day. 

How, then is this annual sum to be raised 
by the people ? Taxes must be paid out of 
the earnings of the people, and not by the 
sale of their original pos?e.3sious. Otherwise 
taxation becomes confiscation, and soon the 
citizen would have neither the means to sup- 
ply 'revenue or to support life. It, what the 
laborer earns ove^r and above his own liveli- 
hood is not sufficient to meet the claims of the 
tax-gatherer, then sales commence by which 
the Government sooner or later will become 
the sole owner of all the estate of its inhabi- 
tants. For annual payments you must have 
annual earnings. The above annual sum must 
le paid by a corresponding annual surplus 
earning in the hand sot the people, after a! lowing 
them to supply their own wants and necessities. 

Now let us turn to an estimate of- aDQual 
earnings. Th^« State valuations for taxable 
purposes in 1850 and 1860, according to an 
estimate ihade by the financial editor of Ihint\% 
ilerchants^ Magazine, furnish us the avt-rage 
annual earnings of the following States for that 
period of tea years, as follows : 
Californi.i, . . - . 



Conucclicut, 
Illinoi.s, 
Indiana, 
Iowa, 

Kansas, . - 
Maine, 

Mas-'^achusetts, - 
IM'chigan, - 
I^Iinnes'ita, - 
New llampshire,- 
Now Jersey, 
iS'cw York, - 
Oh'O, 
Oregon, 
Penn.-^jlvania, 
Rhode L<Iand, - 
Vc; mont, - 
Wisconsin, - 



S]2.56.S,741 

lG,5t;6,9'Jt 

29,2(59,472 

30,214,097 

11.221,101 

2 500,000 

6,7'J4.,300 

SI, 554.4^2 

10,7(;7,6fi2 

3,000,000 

0,413,284 

10,668,200 

72,639,840 

45,869,780 

1,022,545 

5r.2,Sl,101 

'1.7:54.518 

i.:;o,s,cf„s 

l.r.!2G,8S2 
$.>fii,i:-; 1,802 



18 



I have not taken into account the border 
slave States, as their situation is such as to 
defeat any calculation of their earnings, at 
least for som« y^-ars to come. It will he seen 
therefore, that the anuual amount which from 
this time forward must be paid into the Fede 
ral Treasury, exceeds by almost one hundred 
mtllious of dollars the total annual earnings 
of the nineteen free States, during a period 
of peace and unexampled prosperity. Under 
the present policy pursued towards the seced- 
ed State?, a half a century will roll away be 
fore they will again assist the wealth of the 
country. Their whole system of productive- 
ness is to be destroyed. Four millions of 
annual producers are to beoome idle and 
worthless consumers, and a vast Bureau is 
about to be erected by which the Govern- 
ment shall support the negro instead of the 
negro, as heretofore, assisting to support the 
government. Time will show that emanci- 
pation is the costliest feature of this war. 
Cotton, tobacco, riee, sugar, will perish, as 
means of revenue. The Mow of the Execu- 
tive which releases four millions of hands from 
profitable labor, imposes the task from which 
they are set free as producers on a similar 
number of white laborers. It does more. 
They are still consumers — they must be fed 
and "they will not feed themselves. The Pre- 
sident unconsciously uttered a philosophic 
truth when a year ago he said of free negroes : 
" They eat and nothing else." Nor can the 
negro "be much blamed for accepting this easy 
life when an insane party tenders it to him, 
and lays the burden of labor from which he 
is liberated on the neck of the white man. A 
totally ruined and impoverished South, her 
property destroyed and her slaves set free, 
all simply means the annihilation of so many 
sources' of national revenue, and the conse 
quent enormous increased taxation in the 
North. Confiscation will not pay the expeEses 
of its own machinery and execution. As a 
means of replenishing the Treasury it is not 
to he mentioned, except by madmen. All 
history bears testimony to the folly of thus 
attempting the liquidation of a public debt. 
It mu:;t be met and paid by the fruits of the 
soil produced by labor. And he who reduces 
the number of laborers North or South, white 
or black, in the same proportion multiplies 
the toils and sacrifices of those who yet re- 
main. 

Mr. Chairman, I need not pause to dwell 
upon the mathematical certainty of national 
and individual bankruptcy and ruin which 
the foregoing calculations so conclusively de- 
monstrate. The humblest mind in the land 
will grasp the fatal result upon which we are 
hasteiiing. But some superficial observer, 
intending too to further deceive the popular 
mind, will doubtless point to the surrounding 
appearances of general prosperity as an an- 
swer to this portion of my remarks. Money 
is flowing in boundless profusion. Unsatural 
prices ..re paid for everything. A meretric- 
ious splendor hails us upon the streets, at the 



rout, the assembly, and the theatre. The na» 
tion seems fattening on blood and carnage. 
But this high feverish flush which we every- 
where behold is not the genial warmth of 
health. It i-s the fierce hectic glow of a swift 
consumption. It is the herald of death, and 
points to the tomb. What we call money is 
not money, and the most gorgeous wealth has 
no value, because it is a prey to the monster 
debt. Frenchmen, more than a hundred 
years ago, dreamed of a fabulous fountain of 
prosperity, and located it in the valley of the 
Mississippi. The credit of the Mississippi 
company became the basis of an illimitable 
paper currency, and both the king and people 
of France hailed John Law, its founder, as the 
deliverer of their kingdom. It was treason 
to doubt the infallibility of his gigantic 
scheme of human credulity and folly, as it is 
now to doubt the wisdom and final success of 
our own fiu-incial departmeat. 

Bancroft, the historian, well portrays our 
own unhappy situation in describing this great 
delusion of the French : 

" A government," he says, "which had almost 
ab.sdluto power of legislation, conspired to give the 
widest extension to what was called credit. Law 
might have regulated at his pleasure the interest of 
money, the value of stocks, and the price of labor 
and produce. The contest between paper and 
specie began to rage— the one buoyed up by des- 
potic power, the other appealing to common sense. 
■» » Paper was made the legal tender in 
all payments. To win the little gold and silver 
that wa.s hoarded by the humble classes small bills, 
as low even as ten livres, (a livre is about twenty 
cents) were put in circulation. * * * , 
AVhen men arc greatly in the wrong, especially 
when they have embarked their fortunes in their 
error, they wilfully resist light. So it has been 
with the Frencb people; they remained faithful t^ 
the delusion till Frauco was impoverished, public 
and privae credit was subverted, the income of 
capitalists annihilated, and labor left without em- 
ployment, while in the midst of the universal 
wretchedness •of the middling class, a few war 
i speculators gloried in their unjust acquisition aud 
I eujoyment of immense wealth." 

At about the same period a similar frenzy 

I was raging on the other side of the English 

I channel, and British statesmen fancied they 

had found the magic alembic by which paper 

issued upon credit could be made to supply 

the uses of gold. 

The trade of the South sea, was to pay the 

debt of England in twenty-seven years, and 

Sir John Blunt issued Government bonds on 

! the faith of this fictitious wealth. Avarice 

I and speculation instantly seized like twin 

i furies upon the heart of the whole kingdom. 

The glittering beams of a false and deceptive 

1 proBperity gilded every present scene, and 

1 illuminated the future with the radiant smiles 

of hope. The British parliament resounded 

with high eulogiums upon the financial scheme 

which was so soon to release the hands ol 

En<'lish industry from the galling manacles 

of debt. We are listening from day to day to 

similar speeches upon a sinQ^' >J^'k''*^ ^^ 

they aro made on the other si||ol5|l\«|^hain:« 







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